Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 25 June 2013
470. Deputy John Lyons asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the cases in which his Department covers the cost of the translation of documents from other languages; the amount this practice will cost his Department in 2013 and has cost his Department in the past five years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30613/13]
Amharc ar fhreagraI wish to advise the Deputy that the total translation costs incurred by my Department in respect of expenditure from the Department's Vote are detailed as follows.
|
01/01/13 - 25/06/13 |
2008 - 2012 |
|
€ 6,746 |
€ 679,593 |
The Deputy may also wish to note that the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) requires translation of the content of individual application forms submitted by applicants in a broad range of languages as well as other documents related to the processing of applications for asylum and immigration related matters. It is not possible to provide a precise breakdown of the costs for the years requested without spending an inordinate amount of time segregating a large volume of individual transactions as the payments systems record both translation and interpretation services under the same budget heading. However, it is estimated that the cost of translation for the years 2011, 2012 amount to €160,000 and €42,000 respectively. Extrapolated costs for 2008, 2009 and 2010 amount to €477,000, €487,000 and €272,000 respectively. The volumes are demand led and, as can be seen from the figures above, there has been an eleven fold decrease in expenditure in 2012 compared to 2008. This is primarily due to the reduction in the number of asylum claims over the period in question. Because the expenditure is demand led it is not possible to estimate costs for 2013. However, I can advise the Deputy that an estimated €17,000 has been expended to the end of May this year.
